Hi Everyone,

so my problem is the following. So far I have "activated" like 10-12 settlements but only really paid attention and put work into Sanctuary Hills.

Sanctuary Hills looks the following for me:

17 Settlers

25 Food

25 Water

119 Defense

50ish Power

Lots of buildings, tons of decoration, level 3 bar, level 2 clothing and general goods.

For the longest time my settlement happiness was at 80-82. Over the weekend now I paid more attention to questing and exploring and I noticed, everytime I was back at Sanctuary Hills, my happiness had dropped to anywhere between 61-69, depending on how long I was gone.

From what I read, happiness around 80 is the max you'll get without doing special things that have to be figured out.

Is there any way to KEEP this level and continue with the main part of the game, or will the absence of me, their major, always result in a constant happiness drop until I show up and spend some time?

edit: Cause I noticed that as soon as I show up and enter the workshop menu, the red arrow of happiness turns up and green just from being there.

Thanks!

Settlements are bugged and sometime forget bed assignment for settlers.

Open up the workshop and look at the bed, check to see if the pipboy icon is red, if it is, it means your beds are unassigned.

Manually assign beds to the NPCs, and the happiness score should go back up.

Sorry totally forgot Beds in my post, got 23 beds and all are assigned and marker is green, so that's not the problem from what I can tell. But thanks!

Did you ignore a supermutant/raider/ghoul problem quest for the place?

I've had a couple of those time out and that seemed to drop the happiness. I'm not sure how to get it back up afterwards.

Every settler needs a "job", when you get new settlers assign them to food plants for example. Worked for me.

That's what I thought too, but at least I did not get a message, since I would have immediately reacted or reloaded if it was about my main base, everything in the settlement itself looks normal, so I dont think I missed anything.

Whats weird to me is that it starts to increase the second I arrive at the settlement, so it looks like it does make them unhappy if you are away I guess.

ive also heard that TVs can somehow mess up settlements, so if you have a TV, delete it.

good point, will try! Now that you mention it the start of this problem could exactly overlap with the moment I moved the TV from one of the houses to my community room...hope that helps

When it comes to Ghoul/Raider/Super Mutant/Kidnapping settlement quests, even if Preston/Radio Freedom don't give it to you, it's still "active". If you see a settlement's happiness dropping despite all requirements being met, check around. Any settler with the quest will automatically approach you and initiate dialog when you get close enough.